Sublime
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Honey, I shrunk the city: what should declining Japanese cities do? | Osaka Metropolitan University
in Japan—where the population is forecast to fall from 127 million to 100 million or lower by 2049—one in every eight properties are already abandoned, forecast to rise to nearly a third of all housing stock by 2033. (The Japanese call them akiya, ghost homes.)
Cal Flyn • Islands of Abandonment: Nature Rebounding in the Post-Human Landscape
Japan is the world’s most rapidly-aging nation. To cite just one of many extraordinary data points, in 2012 its citizens bought more diapers for adults than for children.
John Rubino • The Money Bubble
send Christmas cards, but that is all. These days I only have acquaintances, neighbours, people I pass in the supermarket. We inquire pleasantly after each other’s health. And at my age I can hardly expect to make new friends. But I can’t honestly say I’m disappointed about this; it seems part of a natural process.
Anita Brookner • Undue Influence
Makiko looked old. Everyone looks older as the years go by, but that’s not what I mean. She wasn’t even forty, but if she told you “I just turned fifty-three,” you’d wish her happy birthday. She didn’t look older. She literally looked old.